


drops of jupiter in her hair

by LailaLiquorice



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Near Death Experiences, Protective Siblings, kat is a saviour in this, well cousins but you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 03:11:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20284432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LailaLiquorice/pseuds/LailaLiquorice
Summary: A winter's adventure turns into a frosty nightmare for Anne, and Kat is left to be the protective cousin for once.





	drops of jupiter in her hair

A clear winter’s day after a week of non-stop rain had given Jane the excuse to force a very cabin-fevery Anne and Kat outside for the first time in several days, and they hadn’t just used their freedom to go into central London as per usual. Kat’s complaint that everything was so much more crowded and built up than how they remembered it from their old lives caused Anne to skid to a halt where she was heading towards their usual train line in the underground station, before abruptly changing directions and dragging Kat with her without giving an explanation.

And that was how Kat found herself getting off a train to be faced with a forest so beautiful it was worthy of being pictured on a Christmas card.

“Come on!” yelled Anne, zipping her coat and charging towards the platform exit.

Kat was left just running after her with her laughter leaving clouds of steam in the air, all but shoving her ticket into the barrier to let herself out of the station before they were running down a path through the fields and towards the forest. The pompoms on Anne’s woolly hat bounced just like her usual space buns did as she ran, bringing a smile to Kat’s face even though her cold ears made her wish she’d brought a hat for herself.

They skidded to a standstill once they reached the end of the forest, both panting to get their breath back as the chilled air made Kat’s lungs ache. “It looks bigger up close,” she commented once she could form words again, glancing upwards with a slightly nervous frown at the trees towering over them.

“We won’t go in far, I just thought it’d be nice to get away from the city a bit,” Anne reassured her with a grin that Kat couldn’t help but trust. “It’s not even like we’ve gone that far from home, Jane could be here in half an hour in the car but obvs that isn’t an option for me just yet.”

Kat gave an exaggerated hum as she grinned in an attempt to stifle her laughter; the fifth time failing her driving test had actually been due to driving too slowly in a desperate bid to pass and the fit she’d thrown upon returning home had practically shaken the walls.

Anne glanced up from the floor before Kat had a chance to rearrange her expression. “Shut up Kitkat,” she retorted playfully.

“I didn’t say anything!” Kat squeaked.

“Your face did! Ugh enough of this, come on!”

Their laughter echoed around the silent trees as they stepped foot into the forest at last, Kat trusting Anne to lead the way as she followed on slightly behind. The slight frost the night before meant that the leaves still crunched beneath her feet despite autumn being long gone, making everything feel a little eerie once their voices fell quiet to better take in the scenery.

Kat lasted five minutes before her own footsteps started to sound too much like someone was following them, and after putting on a short burst of speed to catch up with Anne she burst out “Can we keep talking please?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, it was getting a bit spooky,” Anne said with an easy smile that Kat returned a little more nervously. She glanced around as if looking for something, then took off suddenly with a shout of “I’ll race you to that tree stump!”

Despite knowing that Anne would win Kat still ran after her; she loved spending time with her cousin since it let her be the rebellious child that she’d never been able to be back in her old life. That neither of them had really. While Jane mothering her meant that Kat felt more like a child with her too, there was something about Anne dragging her into trouble like an older cousin-turned-sister was meant to that she loved more than she could say.

Anne was grinning triumphantly as she turned to face Kat after hopping up onto the stump on the edge of a steep incline, pulling a superhero pose when Kat took her phone out for a photo. “I can see everywhere from up here,” she said, shielding her eyes from the winter sun with one hand as she looked out over the trees and the lake far below them. “I think that might be the city out there in the distance, lemme-“

She broke off with a scream as the rotted wood beneath her feet gave way and sent her plummeting off the cliff, tumbling head over heels and barely missing several trees before she fell into the lake with an enormous splash.

Kat shrieked Anne’s name as she scrabbled down the cliff after her, being as careful as she could manage while wanting to just sprint after her regardless of her own safety. Anne was heaving herself onto the bank by the time Kat made it down to her, her hat gone and her hair dripping with water, and when she looked up at Kat she could see the scratches on her face from her uncontrollable roll down the hill. “Well that was fucking cold,” she said, any bite in her words ruined by how her teeth were chattering as she shivered. 

She attempted to smile at the sarcasm, but she could hardly manage it with the worry that was making her heart race. “Are you ok?” Kat asked, eyes wide as she took in Anne’s sodden clothes and the smears of blood on her face and hands.

“Yeah, ‘m not hurt. Just damp,” Anne muttered, shrugging as she gave Kat a grim look. It fell into a crestfallen frown as she touched her hair and realised her hat was missing, but one glance at it floating across the lake was enough for her to decide it wasn’t worth wading back in again. “And bloody freezing too,” she added, “we’re going home right now before I die of cold out here.”

Kat nodded firmly, but her voice died in her throat from where she’d been about to agree when she looked behind her and realised she had no idea where they were. She could just about see the stump that Anne had fallen off of if she craned her neck upwards but there was no way they could climb all the way back up the cliff. The plan of just retracing their steps back to the train station was impossible now that they were stuck on a path they didn’t recognise with no idea how to get home.

A quiet “Ah, fuck,” from Anne made Kat whip her head around to see her tipping water out of the headphone port of her phone. “Don’t think this’ll be working anytime soon,” she tried to joke, but the seriousness of the situation was reflected in her solemn expression.

“We can use mine to get us out,” Kat said, though the glimmer of hope she felt was dimmed as soon as she pulled out her phone to see that she’d lost service.

“No signal?” Anne asked, clearly guessing from the defeated look on Kat’s face.

Kat shook her head.

Shivering violently, Anne pushed a strand of sodden hair away from her eyes as she said “Then I guess we’re gonna have to try and walk our way out of here.”

* * *

Anne didn’t know how long they’d been walking for. All Kat’s phone was good for was checking the time but very quickly she decided she didn’t want to know, preferring to just keep putting one foot in front of the other with no indication of time passing then be reminded of how long they’d been lost. Her hair was still dripping water down her face, sluggishly blinking droplets from her eyelashes, and her coat was so wet that she was considering taking it off and seeing if that made her any less cold.

But then she glanced down at the red skin on her hands and decided against it. If she kept her coat on then Kat would be less likely to see, and Anne couldn’t bear the thought of Kat worrying about her on top of everything else.

“I’m sure I haven’t seen that tree before,” Kat said from where she was up in front this time round, pointing to an oddly shaped tree that Anne would have probably been racing to climb on any other day. Her voice grew with confidence by the word as she continued her commentary with “That means we’re not going in circles, that’s a good thing, and even if we come out of the forest on the wrong side we’ll still be out. Do you think I’ll get phone signal back once we’re away from the trees?”

Anne gave a confused hum as she tried to take in Kat’s words. While she could recognise that they should have been making sense, she just couldn’t focus her mind long enough to comprehend what she was saying and what she was supposed to reply.

After several seconds of silence, Kat turned around to face her with a confused look that immediately turned into downright worry. “Annie?” she said in a scared tone.

“Mhm?”

“Your lips have gone blue.”

She lifted a shaking hand to touch her face, vaguely concerned in the back of her mind when she couldn’t feel the contact on either her cheek or her fingertip. “Oh,” Anne breathed out quietly.

They stared blankly at each other for a moment, unspoken fear hanging heavy in the air, before Kat hurried forwards to grab Anne’s freezing hand. “Come on, we have to get home,” she said, the former confidence in her voice still there but marred by a noticeable tremble.

Anne nodded, but when she tried to walk on as Kat tugged at her hand she felt her foot slip and she fell awkwardly to the floor. “’m sorry,” she slurred, trying to push herself back to her feet though not even Kat helping by pulling her arm could get her to stand again.

“Anne? Annie!” Kat cried out, her panicked voice sounding miles away to Anne’s confused mind.

She tried again to stand up but her limbs refused to cooperate, forcing her to admit defeat and settle with just propping herself up with her arm as she stayed sprawled on the floor. “I can’t, ‘m sorry,” Anne repeated as she looked up miserably at Kat, wrapping her other arm around her waist in a feeble attempt to protect what little body heat she still possessed. Her voice quietened to a mumble as she added “I’m so cold.”

Kat stared down at her for a moment with an unreadable expression on her face, before she fumbled to take off her coat. “Put this on instead,” she insisted, ignoring Anne’s protests to unzip her wet coat herself since Anne would never be able to grasp the zip herself with her frozen fingers.

Since her clothes underneath were soaked through too it didn’t make her feel any warmer, but it was nice to have the cold weight of her sodden coat off her shoulders. “Thanks,” she whispered, too drained to even speak properly at that point.

When Kat sat down beside her Anne let her head fall onto Kat’s shoulder, the hand bracing herself against the ground slipping through the leaf litter as her energy was used up. That was until she realised she was starting to fall asleep, and a jolt of pure fear through her chest gave her the boost she needed to sit upright and look Kat in the eye. “I might never get a chance to say this,” she started through gritted teeth, struggling to make her tongue form the right words.

“Don’t be dramatic,” Kat whispered, before she realised like a blow to the head that perhaps Anne wasn’t.

Anne gave her head a tiny shake when Kat interrupted, and the sight of tears rolling down her ghostly pale face was enough for her to fall silent. “I love you,” she said, moving with effort to place an ice-cold hand on Kat’s cheek. “You’re the best little sister I’ve ever had.”

Kat covered Anne’s hand with her own as she started to cry too. “I love you and you’re not dying here,” she insisted, choking out a forceful “No!” when Anne just shrugged. “Come on, you can survive anything. You’re Anne Boleyn, you always make it.”

The ribbon choker around Anne’s neck choosing that exact moment to come undone under its own damp weight and reveal her scar quickly proved that statement wrong.

“S’alright,” Anne breathed out, her head nodding forwards again as her short-lived strength deserted her. A delirious smile flitted across her face as she added “We ‘ad fun.”

“Annie, stop it,” Kat sobbed, grabbing her shoulders as she threatened to fall forwards.

Anne shook her head, just about finding the motivation to look up at her cousin as Kat’s distress pierced through the bubble of lucidity that had prevented her from panicking until then. “Don’t want to die again Kitkat,” she whimpered. She’d stopped shivering by then, which would have been a pleasant feeling if it weren’t for the voice at the back of her head quietly insisting that wasn’t a good thing.

Her head lolled to the side as Kat prodded her neck with two fingers to check her pulse, and from the way her eyes darkened Anne could tell that the result wasn’t good. “Just hold on, alright?” she begged, “I’m gonna get you help, I’m not letting you die here. Not again.”

Those confident words turning into a terrified scream was the last thing Anne heard as a black wave crashed over her vision and she collapsed to the floor.

* * *

_Beep._

_Beep._

The first thing she became aware of was the fact that she was warm. Blissfully, beautifully warm, compared to the numb coldness that she’d last known. But her contentedness at that lasted barely a few seconds before it made her panic, the question of ‘Am I in Heaven?’ screaming at the forefront of her mind.

She tried to sit up, eyes flying open, but almost immediately there was a firm hand on her chest pushing her back down.

“Careful, Anne. You’re ok, you’re in hospital and we’re all here. Just go easy for a minute.”

Anne focused her eyes at the familiar voice, looking up into the worried smile of Catherine of Aragon. “I’m ok?” she asked in a fragile voice, not quite ready to believe it yet.

“You’re ok,” Aragon repeated, unable to contain a relieved sigh at the sound of Anne’s voice after hours of waiting and worry.

She could have cried with happiness as she fell back into the hospital bed which felt like the most comfortable place on Earth, but instead she just found Aragon’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

“You gave us quite the scare though,” said Cathy as she sat down on the bed in Anne’s eyeline, Anna pulling up her chair so she was close enough to grip onto Anne’s hand with a tight smile on her face. “Everyone was so worried and the doctors said it would be touch and go for a while. But your body temperature has returned to normal and there’s no sign of frostbite, so in a couple of hours you’ll be absolutely fine.”

Anne gave a tired but happy groan at the news, fully relaxing back into her pillow and closing her eyes. But then a horrible thought occurred to her as she replayed the last moments before she’d passed out, crying out a horrified “Where’s Kat?!”

The other three just exchanged a glance. The heart machine beeped a panicky rhythm as Anne’s heartrate soared, shouting again “Well? What happened to her, is she ok?”

“Shh, love, or you’ll wake her up!”

At the sound of Jane’s reassuring tone, Anne let Anna help her to sit up and look properly around the hospital room. Jane was sat in an armchair against the wall, and curled up in her lap was the very person Anne had been looking for. Kat was fast asleep and clearly dead to the world if she hadn’t been woken by Anne’s shout, completely wiped out by the events of the day.

“You can thank her that the pair of you made it out of there ok,” Jane said, and Anne watched her through wide eyes as she continued. “After you passed out she left you covered up in the forest and managed to run far enough to get phone signal to call an ambulance. She led the ambulance crew back through the forest to find and rescue you.”

Aragon nodded along to Jane’s account. “Then she called us and we met the pair of you here. She saved your life, Anne.”

She didn’t realise she’d started crying again until she felt tears dripping onto the hand in her lap. Words failed her as she met Jane’s eyes again, looking down at Kat in her lap and just holding out her arms in a voiceless plea.

Thankfully Jane seemed know what she meant, smiling knowingly as she nodded for Anna to carefully take the sleeping Kat from her arms. Anne shifted a little on her bed to make room for Anna to lay her down beside her, just as Kat sleepily blinked open one eye and murmured “Annie?”

“It’s me, Kat. I’m alive,” Anne choked out as she grinned tearfully.

Kat’s eye closed again as tiredness fought to claim her again but she still gave a beaming smile, wrapping her arms around Anne’s torso and resting her head over her heart.

“Go back to sleep, both of you,” Aragon murmured, smoothing Anne’s hair away from her face and wiping her tears with a gentle thumb. “We’ll all be here when you wake up.”

Anne continued to cry silently as she held her close. Exhaustion pulled at her own limbs as she sunk back into the bed, but the lingering fear of how close a call she’d just had kept her arms tight around her cousin and saviour as she gave herself back into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> You can thank the lovely anon who sent in this prompt for this angst fest, which was “I might never get a chance to say this.”
> 
> And we have more beheaded cousins! I love these two so much and really need to write them together more. in my last fic with them (we are too fragile just to guess) I had Anne looking after Kat but this time we’re flipping the script and multiplying it by a lot because this is a lot, and I’ll apologise in advance to the sixcord who have had this dangled over their heads for a good few days now. But the ending scene is so soft I love them all so much.
> 
> I'm lailaliquorice on tumblr :)


End file.
